The Emma crew took a trip to Austin, TX last week for the HOW Design Conference, one of the largest gatherings of design professionals each year. Jessica and Allison went to represent our design team, Steve and Kendrick came to chat with the attendees about Emma and I led a breakout session about designing emails with clear goals (and revenue) in mind. After the conference, I sat down to summarize the ideas that will stick with me for a while. Here are the top five…

1. Creativity transforms the common into the extraordinary. Even the wrist watch has outer limits that are still being explored. Speaker: Rob Walker

2. Pretend like your email’s on the retail shelf. The same elements of humor, the unexpected, the obvious and the quirky are keys to success in the inbox and the store aisle. Speaker: Mitch Nash of Blue Q.

3. Powerpoint gets a bad rap, but it may be for bad reasons. Nancy, from Duarte Design, posed the question ‘Is Powerpoint broken? Or is the way we use it broken?’ It made me think of email marketers that aren’t quite happy with their results. It’s a hard question, but is email what’s broken? Or is it the way it’s being used? Speaker: Nancy Duarte

4. Good copy can (and should) come from bad. Wayne recommends writing the boring version of your headline first, and then creatively translating the idea from there. Speaker: Wayne Geyer

5. Wayne is a cilantro hater. For a good laugh, check out his anti-cilantro website experience.

Did you make it to HOW, too? What ideas will still inspire you long after the shock of 106-degree heat wears off?

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